


Moebius

by jessebee



Series: Folium Curve [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Along with the new books, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, EU pretty much out the window, Emotional Baggage, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Fixing what JJ broke, Han Solo Lives, M/M, Sequel, Slash, Telepathy, The Force, because I said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:59:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7445188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Go to the end to find the beginning again, the things left behind now in front of you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moebius

**

 

It made the best sense for Rey to make the call to Chewbacca to bring the _Millennium_ _Falcon_ down, in the code she said they'd agreed upon, because far uncharted hind-end of the galaxy or not, there was no such thing as a completely secure comm-link.

 

“No sense in giving the game away ahead of time, if anyone else is close enough to listen,” Luke said as Rey made contact. “Tell Chewie to come down and underwater about 50 feet, on the south side of the island, in ten minutes. We'll have the airlock gate open.

 

“We should get going,” he continued, touching Han's arm. “If Chewie does a fly-by and sees you, he might come down a bit quicker than he should.”

 

“Give it a minute,” Han said, squinting at the horizon.

 

“Han – ”

 

“No, just – ” Han put a hand up for patience and captured Luke with a look. “Give it a minute. If I know Chewie – and I do – he'll fly a high slingshot first, get the lay of things – there,” he finished, a grin breaking out as he turned back to the skyline.

 

And Luke realized, with a helpless kind of amusement, that he had precious little more resistance to those dark hazel eyes now than he'd had thirty-odd years ago in Mos Eisley.

 

He stared at the beloved profile, at Han's gray-white hair practically aglow in Ahch-To's rare full sunlight, before he followed the direction of Han's gaze. And saw the dark spot about five seconds later – a spot that rapidly expanded into the much-missed shape of the _Millennium_ _Falcon_ , bursting into view in almost exactly the place where Han had known, somehow, that she'd appear.

 

Luke's heart clenched with a near-painful kind of joy as the old freighter headed toward and shot past the island, powering high and fast, the growl of her drives a half-second behind her. She swung out wide and banked in just the slingshot motion Han had predicted, as ever graceful in motion as she was awkward on the ground. _Beautiful_ , Luke thought. _Hello, lady._

 

Han wheeled around, his eyes practically dancing. “Still think she's a piece of junk?”

 

Luke heaved the best dramatic sigh he could manage. “Are you _ever_ going to let me forget that?”

 

Han's grin widened. “Not on your life, kid,” he said, laughing, and Luke saw Rey starting to smile as well, watching them both, because Han's laughter had always been contagious. “Let's go say 'hello'.”

 

*

 

Riding down in the lift, Rey stood close by Han's side, Luke noted with approval, as if not wanting him out of fingertip range. She was slighter taller than Luke, with a wiry strength half-hidden beneath a mismatched assortment of rough gray and beige clothing, her brown hair scraped back in an equally rough, no-nonsense style. Strong, competent, obviously self-sufficient: one more such sentient being looking out for Han's continued existence was in no way a bad thing. Her still somewhat stunned joy nearly filled the lift's small space, underpinned with a fierce resolve that Han would go right on continuing to exist for a long time to come if she had anything to say about it. She would need to learn to shield herself, and quickly.

 

Hers was the awakening Luke had felt, no doubts about that. The brutal swiftness of it still clung to her, the power that had stormed into her with terrified confusion and continued in pain and desperate anger, perilously close to the Dark. Nothing like the relatively easy unfolding Ben Kenobi had been able to gentle Luke through there in the _Falcon's_ main hold-cum-passenger-lounge, so many years ago.

 

Rey had felt only the savagery of the Force and nothing of its joy and wonder – until the moment she'd turned and seen Han, alive and walking toward her in the sunlight. Her feelings toward him now shone bright as a new-minted metal coin.

 

Next to her, that same man was looking at Luke, a question in his dark eyes. Equal parts joy and relief and nervousness pressed at Luke through their link, all swirling over deep aches, emotional and physical, that had yet to completely ease.

 

 _What?_ Han asked.

 

His voice was warm and distinct in Luke's mind and Luke nearly caught his own breath once again at how _easy_ it was now, the connection between them almost effortless – more clear, in fact, than it had ever been with anyone, including Leia. Luke wanted badly to leave that door between them wide and fully open – just sink himself into that warmth and never come out. But he couldn't. _I need to teach your new friend to shield her emotions, she's a bit – loud._

 

Han's mouth pulled up in his familiar lopsided grin. _Didn't you say that about me?_ he said as the lift stopped and the door slid back.

 

 _Yes_ , Luke replied, as they stepped out and he walked over the section of wall with the airlock-lift controls. And couldn't resist adding, _but in her case, I don't mean in bed._

 

Han slowed a step or two before catching up with Luke again at the control panel, a startled delight lacing through the link. Luke keyed in the panel code and sequence for the airlock auto-op, and flipped the toggle that would open the outer 'lock gate before turning back to catch the grin lurking in Han's eyes.

 

Before either of them could get in any deeper trouble, though, Rey spoke up. “Chewbacca's gonna be so happy to see you,” she said, laying her hand briefly on Han's arm. “He was – really upset.”

 

“Well,” Han said, and squinted over at the 'lock lift platform door, visibly outlined in the hangar floor. He cleared his throat, counterpoint to the deep hum of the airlock gate opening somewhere below their feet. “Been a lotta years. Chewie 'n me, we're … used to each other.”

 

Rey peered up at him and looked like she might say something, and reconsidered. Luke hid his smile. It seemed the girl was a fast learner. But then the wave of affection from Han for his long-time partner was nearly touchable, and maybe Han's sabacc face had slipped a little over the years, too.

 

“As much as anyone ever gets used to you, I suppose,” Luke said, consideringly. He hid another smile as Rey stared at him, looking a little taken aback, and Han came around to face him with sudden mock-outrage on full display. Might as well demolish whatever the girl's notions about the “Jedi Master” were before they got well-rooted.

 

“Oh, thanks a lot, _pal_. Why exactly did I wanna come find you, again?” Han demanded, pointing a finger at him. Laughter glittered warm through the link.

 

“You missed me?”

 

“Not a bit.” _**Way**_ _more than a bit._

 

The sounds of the 'lock interrupted as they changed timbre and pitch, getting louder, and Luke took a look at the indicators. “They're in the chamber. Few minutes to vent the water, and they'll be up.”

 

Han shifted his weight, his earlier tangle of nerves and anticipation returning as he stared over at the space where his ship would appear.

 

Luke touched his elbow. _I'm sure the Falcon's fine._

 

_It ain't that._

 

_Then what? Chewie? He'll be overjoyed, you know that. And you've had close calls before, so why …?_

 

Han took a breath. _Not like this. He_ _ **saw**_ _me die. By my –_

 

The thought cut off sharply but Luke could finish it easily enough, in the private part of his own mind:  _by my son's hand._

 

The 'lock lift doors began to scythe open, and the wave of escaping air brought tangy sea-smell with it into the hangar. Rey stepped toward the opening, fascination written all over her.

 

“Haven't seen an airlock-lift before?” Luke asked, curious about her expression.

 

“Of course I have,” Rey said, the unconscious arrogance of youth in her voice. “Just not a working one this big. And not underwater! I didn't know there was that much water anywhere.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I didn't know it would smell like that.”

 

“Where are you from, Rey?”

 

“I was left on Jakku.” And before Luke could react to that – “Here she comes!”

 

The _Falcon_ rose slowly into view like some half-mythical creature, water dripping from her perpetually mismatched outer hull. She came up with bow mandibles pointing left and the cockpit only half visible, but Luke thought he caught a flicker of russet. “Well, the cockpit views should be clean now,” he said against the pressure of the sudden lump in his throat, and got a snort from Han for that. “Her plating looks different again.”

 

“Yeah, I still gotta give her a good goin'-over,” Han said. “Lost her for a while, don't know what – ”

 

Luke's eyebrows shot up. “' _Lost'_ her?”

 

“Don't start,” Han growled.

 

“That's how we met,” Rey put in brightly. “I stole her.”

 

“From Han?”

 

“No!” She looked offended. “From Unkar Plutt, who stole her from the Irving Boys – ”

 

“ – who stole her from Gannis Ducain, the bastard who stole her from me – ” Han put in –

 

“ – because me and Finn needed to get off-planet,” Rey finished, grinning, the obvious thrill of that bit of mayhem written all over her round face.

 

Luke blinked. No wonder Han liked her. “Finn – ” Han had mentioned the name, but –

 

“Stormtrooper, defected from the First Order. Saved Poe Dameron's hide in the process,” Han said absently, all his attention now on the _Falcon_.

 

Luke blinked again, opened his mouth, and closed it. Time later for all the bits he hadn't heard yet, he decided, as the airlock lift stopped and he heard the familiar whine of the _Falcon's_ boarding ramp coming down. Later would be soon enough.

 

The ramp stopped with the loud clack of metal on stone, and a familiar pair of long furry feet and legs appeared as Chewbacca descended and ducked under the edge of the Falcon's hull. Straightened up and stopped, still as stone.

 

“'bout time you got here,” Han said. His lazy tone was as far from the wound-tight tension in his body as it was possible to get.

 

Silence. Then –

 

<… you are dead.>

 

Luke hadn't thought Chewbacca could be that soft.

 

Han wore an expression that Luke couldn't describe. “Almost, but then Luke, here, had some other ideas about that.”

 

Chewbacca didn't move.

 

Han did, pacing forward slowly, hands out and open. “Chewie. C'mon, pal, it's me. Still kicking.”

 

Still the Wookie stood, silent and motionless.

 

Han stopped perhaps ten feet away, just outside the _Falcon's_ shadow. “Chewbacca. Breathe.”

 

Luke saw the furred chest rise, and then a start went through the tall body. Chewie took a step, and another.

 

Han met him halfway.

 

Chewbacca wrapped him up close in long arms, enveloping him until Han half-vanished, his hair ghostly pale against his partner's russet fur. Still in silence until the softest moan, nearly a whimper, escaped; it was nothing like any sound Luke had ever heard from the Wookie.

 

“Hey,” Han said, his voice muffled and achingly gentle. “Hey, now.”

 

His own throat tight, Luke touched Rey's elbow and when she looked at him, drew her away with a tilt of his head, trying to give his old friends some privacy. Although halfway across known space would be barely far enough now to dampen Han's emotional backwash, so halfway across this hangar certainly wouldn't do it.

 

Rey was blinking hard, and rubbed fretfully at her eyes with one hand. Luke walked her a little ways off, over by the old X-wing fighter.

 

“This is your ship?” Rey asked, a little thickly. “In the stories, you had an X-wing.”

 

He'd need to find out what those stories were. “I did. But this is a later, refitted model.”

 

Rey squinted up at the ship, walked a few steps to the side and squinted up at it again. “The model that didn't need a droid, maybe?” She sniffed. “T-65 … something, I don't remember.”

 

“65D-A1, yes.” Luke watched her, resolutely tuning out the private conversation behind him. “You know a lot about starships, don't you.”

 

Rey looked at him. Her eyes were a warm hazel, more golden-brown than Han's, and far older than they should have been. Her gaze was steady, if a bit pink around the edges. “It's my life. I scavenge shipwrecks, search them for sellable parts. I've learned everything about every one of them that I possibly can. Couple of big Imperial ones but a lot of Republic ships, too, and others, from that huge battle.”

 

“Jakku was the last major battle of the war,” Luke said, remembering too well. “The Empire lost their weapons facility on the ground and their last Super Star Destroyer as well, along with scuttling an SD to keep us from getting it. But they used tractor beams to drag a lot of Republic ships down onto the planet's surface. Very few beings survived those crashes.”

 

“That's what the older scavengers said, but – organics don't last long, out there.”

 

A bare statement of fact, and the sense that the girl had learned it much too early. “Not on my homeworld, either,” Luke said. “But we brought out everyone we could, and gave the Empire the chance to do the same, if they – ”

 

<Luke.>

 

Luke turned to see Chewbacca coming toward him, Han some paces behind. The Wookie's tread was near-silent on the stone floor. “Hi, Chewie. It's good to see you.”

 

In the next moment the hangar disappeared behind coarse fur as Chewbacca hugged him bone-crunchingly hard. <Sand-cub,> Chewie woofed softly, and Luke's throat tightened again at the nickname he hadn't heard in more than ten years. He got a far greater shock when Chewbacca released him only to take both of his hands in long paws and sink to one knee in front of him.

 

<Luke Skywalker.> The growl was solemn and alarmingly formal-sounding.

 

Luke stared into very serious, deep-set blue eyes, and abruptly realized where this might be going. “Chewie – ”

 

<You have saved the life of my – > _other-being-sibling_ was as close as Luke could come to translating the archaic term Chewbacca used.  <My life is yours.>

 

It took the air right out of Luke's chest. He closed his eyes and leaned forward to rest his own forehead against Chewbacca's. Fur prickled his skin. “But ... Han,” he whispered.

 

<He has released me, that I may come to you. _>_

 

Oh, great.  _What do I do_ _**now** _ _?_

 

 _You accept,_ Han said, wryly. _Nothing else you_ _ **can**_ _do._

 

Luke swallowed hard. “Then I accept the debt,” he murmured, knowing sensitive ears would hear him, “on one condition and this only.” He shifted his hands in Chewbacca's paws and squeezed, hard enough to catch the tiniest prick of claws against his own skin. “That you  _stay with him._ ”

 

<Luke – >

 

“Keep him safe, as best he'll let you.” Luke pulled back to meet Chewbacca's eyes. “There's nothing worth more than that.”

 

Chewbacca's slow smile bared his fangs. <You are a worthy mate, sand-cub. Done.>

 

A sense of confusion from Rey; she obviously understood some Shriiwook, but evidently not enough to get what had just occurred.

 

But Luke's turn to her to explain was derailed by Han's arm settling around his shoulders. “Great, so I'm _still_ not rid of him?” Han said in tones of friendly complaint, turning to look at Chewbacca as the Wookie stood back to his full height.

 

<I must do as my Life Debtor asks,> Chewbacca rumbled, very solemnly.

 

Han threw his head back and laughed. “I think it's time to celebrate. And _this_ time,” he said, including Rey in with a sweep of his other arm and then turning his broad smile full on Luke, “unless some bastard found my stash aboard the _Falcon_ , there is alcohol.”

 

*

 

“... so,” Han took a leisurely swallow and set his cup down on the dejarik table with a little _thup._ “I wanted to know what was so damned important about the little droid and Finn said it had a map to you.”

 

“To me?” Luke said. “To the temple here, you mean.”

 

“No, to you,” Rey put in, sitting up straighter on the packing crate she was using as a seat. “That's what BB-8 told me; that's what his master Poe Dameron gave him and told him to run, before the First Order captured him, because they wanted it too. Poe got the piece of the map from somebody in Tuanul.”

 

Tuanul. Luke knew that name … He rubbed one finger absently against his own cup. He'd pulled over a crate for a seat as well; with Chewie on the other end of the curved acceleration couch, the fit next to Han would be closer than Luke would be entirely comfortable with. In front of an audience, anyway.

 

“Stubborn droid, secret intel, looking for somebody, desert planet,” Han said, settling his shoulders against the couch back. “Sound familiar?”

 

Luke snorted. “It does, at that. Who had this map piece?”

 

Rey's brow creased. “T – Tek – ” She looked at Han in appeal.

 

“Lor San Tekka,” Han said quietly, and Luke breathed in, knowing now what was coming next.

 

“Kylo Ren had the troopers destroy the village and – kill everybody, Finn said. Even after they surrendered.” Rey bit her lip. “That's why he deserted. He said he wasn't going to kill for them.”

 

It shouldn't hurt, Luke thought, to learn about another Dark act at his nephew's hands. But it did, and if he meditated until he was Yoda's age, it wouldn't ease the sting.

 

“Why did this being Tekka have just a piece of a map?” Rey asked. “I mean, if he knew where you were, then why not the whole thing? Or better yet, just coordinates?”

 

“Because he didn't know,” Luke said. “What did the map piece look like?”

 

“Puzzle-edged, like the real old pre-Empire maps were.” Han narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Showed a couple of systems but not enough info to place them in space anywhere. And a track marked along them, which I thought at the time didn't make any sense. Like a kid playing connect-the-spots.”

 

Luke nodded. “And where did the other part come from?” he asked Rey.

 

“R2D2 had it,” she said, looking over at the little astromech droid.

 

“Oh, really,” Han said flatly, glaring at Artoo, who just whistled a cheerful-sounding affirmative. “And ya couldn't've have produced that, I don't know, maybe – _sooner_?”

 

Artoo's “no” was obvious even to beings who didn't speak Binary. Han's glare got harder.

 

“Poe said it – just woke up,” Rey finished.

 

Luke nodded again, and Han turned the glare squarely in his direction. “Spill it, kid.”

 

“It's a pilgrimage map.”

 

“A what?” Rey asked.

 

But Han's expression softened abruptly. “Ye-ah, that makes sense. And why Tekka would've wanted to have even a piece of it.”

 

Rey's expression said very plainly that she wanted to understand, too, and that soon would be good.

 

“You know what a pilgrimage is, as a religious thing?” Han asked her, and she nodded. “So, the map'd be the route of all the minor 'mystical'” – he framed the word with his fingers – “sites you'd be supposed to hit, in the right order, on your way to the major one.”

 

“But the Force isn't a religion,” Rey protested, and hesitated. She looked at Luke. “Is it?”

 

“No, it isn't, but sometimes it gets treated like one.” Luke leaned forward, resting his forearms on the game table. “Lor San Tekka saw it that way. He wasn't sensitive himself, but he venerated what Jedi teachings and artifacts survived the destruction of the Order, and spent most of his life looking for them. He belonged to the Church of the Force, which grew up under the Empire and which was a death sentence then for anyone caught. He was an explorer and an excellent scout; he worked with me and with the New Republic more than a few times, in the early years.”

 

“Lotta that info you two found got loaded into Artoo, didn't it?” Han said, with the air of the experienced smuggler who knew, now, how it had all gone down.

 

“It did,” Luke agreed. “And the last instruction I gave Artoo was to analyze everything he had, so it could be referenced when you needed it in the future. Not that I expected he'd shut down for several years to do that.”

 

Artoo made a huffy squawk.

 

 _Needed it after you were gone, you mean_ , Han poked at him.

 

Luke ignored that. “The map section Artoo has was enough to get me close. I knew I'd find my way from there.”

 

“How?” Rey asked.

 

Luke half-smiled. “That's an answer for another time.”

 

 _I'm gonna hear it sooner_ , _though_ , Han told him, and it wasn't a question.

 

 _It smacks of that “mystical” stuff you love so much,_ Luke warned him. And speaking of … “How are you familiar with religious pilgrimage maps, anyway?”

 

Han's face took on that “innocent” expression that, as far as Luke was concerned, never had worked worth a damn. “Yeah, well.” He coughed. “I might have, you know,” – a shrug – “'transported' a pilgrim or two, in my time, years ago.”

 

Discomfort and – embarrassment? Luke narrowed his eyes. “Did you, now.”

 

Han shrugged. He threw out a hand, then gestured back at himself. “Smuggler, remember? If they got the credits ...”

 

But Luke was onto something now. “And you picked _that_ _phrase_ in particular, Han, to leave me with, on Yavin. Of everything else you could have said.”

 

“What phrase?”

 

“'May the Force be with you'? Ring a bell?”

 

“Yeah? So?” Han's chin went up. “So, I'd heard the lingo before, that's all. Hells, they said it at the briefing! Didn't mean – ”

 

Luke opened his mouth, but another sound beat him to it. A low rumble that scaled up in pitch and volume until it filled the lounge and fairly shook the air: Chewbacca laughing.

 

The look on Han's face was priceless.

 

Luke started to smile and saw Rey doing the same, despite her obvious confusion, because Chewbacca's mirth was as contagious as Han's had been earlier. In all their years together, Luke had rarely heard Chewie laugh like that.

 

<Caught!> Chewbacca hooted finally, catching his breath. <Years later, but you are caught. I warned you then, Hanso, did I not?>

 

Han was glaring blaster bolts at his long-time partner. “I said it 'cause _he_ believed in it, not because _I_ did, you giant furry – !”  


<Yet you said it. Words mean things, my friend.>

 

“Well, _yes_ , that's why we all use them, although right now I dunno why I ever bothered with learning yours!”

 

But Chewbacca only leaned back and put both arms behind his head in a gesture that Luke had learned years ago meant “I win, and I am done,” and gave Han a fang-bearing smile.

 

Luke glanced over at Rey, whose curiosity was every bit as clear as her feeling of being a little left out and a little annoyed. Miracle rescue not withstanding, she was still really only taking him on Han's say-so, which made him smile again. “That was the first time I heard Han mention the Force with something other than a sneer. Of course I'd only known him for about three days then, give or take.”

 

“Where were you?”

 

“Yavin Four, before the attack on the first Death Star.”

 

Rey's face lit up and she looked immediately to Han, Luke was amused to see. “That _really_ happened?”

 

“Oh, it happened all right,” Han growled, and leaned forward, very obviously grabbing hold of the diversion with both hands. “Lemme tell you about this suicidal hotshot I'd taken on as a charter hire, on fuzzball here's recommendation, even – !”

 

*

 

The last night. His last night on Ahch-To, in the living precincts below the temple – for now, anyway. Luke settled Han's body more comfortably against his own, their heartbeats gradually slowing with passion's fading tremors, and looked up at the familiar gray stone ceiling above his bed.

 

A reaching into the Force for the many strands of future had shown Luke some threads that saw his return to this desolate, uncaring peace, barely disturbed by the echoes he himself had brought with him – grief and commitment, sorrow and silence.

 

Luke's mouth quirked. By those lights, he ought to be outside in the temple itself now, probably, meditating in the constant swirl of the wind; opening himself and becoming hollow of everything but the vast dispassion all around, an armor of detachment he might badly need.

 

And for these last five years he had done that. After his students' murders he had followed Yoda's path and pulled away, buried himself in isolation and waited to be found, either by a new life or by the death not so far off. Flotsam in the wash of the Force: drifting between the lost past and the desolate future, convinced that only his separation from them would bring safety to his loved ones and the galaxy at large.

 

Until Han had shocked him back to life.

 

Forced Luke to look again at what he'd convinced himself was truth. Forced him to see what he'd been too near it all to see: that it had not been _him_ , nor the strength of his own emotions, responsible for the death and destruction wrought through the misuse of the Force.

 

That eight hundred years of tradition was a way but not, perhaps, _the_ way.

 

No absolutes. Yoda's path – the path of the old Order – that the way to conquer fear was to divorce love – was not the only way.

 

That _love itself_ , if it were freed of the need for possession and the fear of loss, was another.

 

Tonight Luke was filled instead with the fierce warmth of Han's presence, his lover's bright, volatile spirit battered but undimmed, and the love that burned as hot as ever, only refined by its years in the forge. Tonight his meditation was the rhythmic caress of Han's breath across his skin, and the soft-coarse brush of silvery hair against his throat which brought a far more intimate peace.

 

His fingers curled around the nape of Han's neck, Luke rubbed his other hand slowly up and down Han's bare back, savoring skin and the muscles beneath, nearly as solid as they'd ever been. Fingertips slowing almost without volition over that spot partway down the left side, where flesh felt that little bit different, like new growth.

 

Han shifted, his breath going in, and Luke lightened his touch at once. “Still tender?”

 

“A – bit. Kinda.” His unshaven chin rasped lightly across Luke's collarbone as Han turned his head.

 

“Tell me.”

 

“It's hard to – ” A twitch of the long fingers lying against Luke's right side, curved over his ribs. “ 's more – inside, than – ”

 

_Let me see?_

 

Surprise; faint unease. _'f course – why're you asking? 'm all yours, y'know._ Sudden amusement, resting on bedrock certainty. _You dragged me back, you're stuck with me now._

 

 _Stuck with you, huh?_ _I guess I'll manage._ Luke sent a thick wash of emotions through their link to tangle into Han's and felt his lover feel them, relax completely into them. So incredibly, terrifyingly easy now. _Lie_ _still_.

 

Han's wordless reply made it quite clear that he was far too comfortable to move unless something was going supernova, thanks.

 

Luke shielded the link's upper levels and shifted his focus deeper, below mind and deep into body, easing along nerve-paths not his own, and found it again immediately – the scorched trail through Han's chest.

 

The track of a life nearly lost: the memory of death seared into nerves cauterized where the pitiless, infinite heat of plasma energy had torn through. Those same tissues then literally forced back to life, mended at lightspeed with Luke's own desperate flood of healing Force – and that had caused its own trauma. Fixed but fragile, frayed, still quivering with shock and only slowly to rebuild; the adhesions would likely remind Han of those facts for years to come, every time he overtaxed himself or even moved wrong.

 

And there wasn't a godsbedamned thing Luke could do to help that. Luke squeezed his eyes shut.

 

“So,” Han said, his deep voice warm and sleepy-sounding. “How bad is it, really?”

 

Caught. Luke stilled. “Han ...”

 

Han's chest moved against Luke's side in a deep breath, blown out long against his skin. “Luke, c'mon.”

 

He opened his eyes again as Han leaned up and propped himself on one elbow, and fixed Luke with a steady gaze, no trace of sleep in it. “No way something like that was anything like an easy fix, even for you. And since I'm still feelin' it – ” Dark eyes, an ever-fascinating mélange of gray and brown and gold and green, demanded the full truth, by the rights of half a lifetime. “How bad?”

 

Luke sighed. “You're – as you should be, inside; I got that right. But that much energy through you, and not once but twice, never mind that it was healing the second time, you're – burned.”

 

He wasn't really surprised when Han just nodded. “Like Bespin, I'm thinking? 's kinda what it feels like, just – not all over. So it's gonna take time.”

 

Luke nodded also, trailing the backs of his fingers slowly along Han's jaw, feeling the prickle of stubble and the changes the years had made.

 

The double-shock echoes _would_ fade, he thought; much as the damage done to Han by the neural disrupter followed hard on by the carbonite freeze had eventually healed, as the damage inflicted on Luke's own body by the Emperor's Force lightning had healed as well.

 

But time had been the only real palliative for either of them then, and it was the only one he could see for Han now. They none of them bounced back like they had years ago, and by Han's own reckoning he was probably ten Standard years older than Luke and Leia. Time was both the healer and the enemy no one could fight.

 

From everything he'd been able to study over the years on Force-assisted medicine, Luke knew enough to know that he should have completed another lifetime's worth of training before doing what he'd done. It was nothing short of a miracle that he'd been able to heal Han fully enough to keep him alive.

 

“Well, I say, best don't ask if you can do something until _after_ you've done it,” Han said.

 

Luke blinked, startled, and stared at him.

 

“Ain't that what your million-year-old little green teacher said, too ? And – ”

 

“Nine-hundred,” Luke managed.

 

“Whatever. And no, I don't have to read your mind, just your face,” Han told him. Long fingers brushed up Luke's neck and threaded through his beard, cupping his jaw. “It's done. It worked, or close enough,” Han conceded with a slight tilt of his head, “and the rest'll get better. Let it go.”

 

Exasperated, relentless affection flowed in, washing Luke out of shadowed doubt and back into warm sunlight, thickening in his throat. Breathless, he laced his fingers into thick gray hair and drew Han's head down, leaning up to kiss him. “How the hells did I do without you?” he whispered against Han's mouth.

 

“How? Same as me, kid,” Han murmured, and Luke felt the curve of his smile. “Badly. But I'll tell you what – ” He pulled away just far enough for Luke to see his eyes, which were swiftly darkening. “You c'n make it up to me some more now.”

 

“'Some more'?” Luke echoed, falling in with Han's teasing without a qualm, warmth sparking in his belly. “How long is 'making it up' going to take?”

 

“Years, at the very least.”

 

“Oh, good,” Luke said, breathless again, and pulled Han's head back down.

 

He was coming erect once more, his body quickening ridiculously soon and so was Han's, Luke felt the shift and hardening against his thigh. They were both more than a bit old to be responding like this but damned if he'd waste time now wondering about it. _“The most important zone of desire is in here,” Aunt Beru said, tapping him gently on the forehead, “not down there. Whether it's sex or species or age – what's in your mind is the biggest thing. Truly loving someone makes all the difference.”_ His aunt had been many things and a prude had been nowhere on that list. And she'd loved his uncle with a deep passion that Luke hadn't really begun to understand until –

 

“You're thinking,” Han said, a note of long-suffering in his voice, and pulled back to eye him. “What?”

 

“Nothing.” Luke smiled and shook his head. Somewhere, his aunt was laughing at him. “Tell you later.”

 

He tugged Han closer and sighed as the long body covered his and pressed him down, narrow hips settling between Luke's thighs. His lover's weight was an anchor into this very moment, arousal already coiling between them. Earlier tonight had been nearly as much of a heedless rush as the previous night had been, making playful, loving mockery of any notions of control either of them might have had.

 

Now, with the urgency muted, Han's intentions washed hot and deliciously carnal through the link. To take his time, to touch every inch of Luke's skin, to take them both back to that place Luke had only ever been to with Han.

 

 _Touch and taste_ came from Han, not so much thought as desire translated directly into action, his mouth already busy against Luke's throat, brushing soft licks and tiny nips down places rediscovered, tongue exploring along the edge of Luke's beard. The few moments of concern Luke had had when he'd first realized how much _more_ their connection had become were of no matter now – there was no hesitation in Han at all, just a kind of bewildered, amazed joy at being so close –

 

“Stop. Thinking,” Han muttered and bit down, not entirely gently, over the great vein in Luke's neck.

 

Luke shuddered, his airless laugh cutting off as stinging pleasure roiled through him head to toe, every particle of him coming alive to the singular magic of Han's touch, echoing between them as he let his controls drop.

 

Han moaned as Luke spilled them together, fingers digging into Luke's upper arm. “Yeess.” _So good_.

 

_Han –_

 

“Lemme touch you,” Han growled into his skin. _I **need** to touch you._

 

 _Yes_.

 

Han took over and Luke let it happen, appeasing his own tactile hunger with the sweep of his hands over the moist skin of Han's back and shoulders. Han kissed across his collarbone and down his chest to tease a nipple, licking and sucking until Luke couldn't help but shift restlessly. Then supple fingers replaced the warm mouth as Han moved to repeat the exquisite torture on the other side. At that, Luke groaned and dug a hand into tangled hair to hold him there, but Han's fingers closed around his wrist and urged it away. “Huh-uh. My show, for now.”

 

“Tease,” Luke complained, and felt Han's chuckle as much as heard it.

 

“Only teasin' if you don't deliver, 'n you know I will,” Han murmured.

 

“I-if you don't kill me first.”

 

Long fingers brushed down Luke's side, trailing raised, tingling flesh in their wake, and caressed over his hip and into the wiry curls there, grazing the base of his erection. “Nah. Feels pretty lively to me.”

 

Luke squeezed his eyes shut as heat shot through him and rippled through Han as well, the other man gasping as fire looped between them. “Oh yeah, lively,” Han said thickly as his hand slipped further down to cup the tender roundness between Luke's legs. Luke's breath hitched and he raised his head and caught Han's eyes, seeing hazel gone a dark molten blaze, before the gray head lowered again. Han licked at the edge of Luke's ribcage and squeezed Luke's sac ever so gently and Luke fell back, strength gone, his muscles giving out to the overwhelming wash of passion.

 

Armed with intimate knowledge of Luke's body and the hunger of years growling through the link, Han took him apart, slowly and with exquisite attention to every detail, somehow managing to surf the rising tides between them while Luke himself was drowning, the loving assault unrelenting until Luke was twisting mindlessly beneath him. Moving steadily downward until Han's breath fanned warm over the taut, aching fullness of Luke's cock and Luke was quite possibly going to scream if Han didn't just _touch him there already._

 

Laughter sparked through the link, cutting through the thick, sensual haze fogging Luke's mind, and the only reason he wasn't going to kill Han for it was the sure knowledge of how much it was costing his lover to draw this out – and how much Han needed this.

 

 _Like this, then?_ Han asked, and Luke pried his eyes open to see Han poised above Luke's groin, ravenous need plain in his mind and the tension straining his body.

 

– _oh gods yes **please** –_

 

Strong fingers wrapped around his base as the gray-white head went down and Luke's cry ripped free as Han devoured him, buried him in heat and wet and safety.

 

Luke's fingers dove into Han's hair without any direction from his brain and he fought a losing battle not to push himself even further into the tight sucking heat. He pried his eyes open again because he had to see it, had to see what he'd only had in dreams for so long, the vision of Han's lips stretched around Luke's cock, eyes closed and face rapt with pleasure.

 

_Han_

 

It trembled on the air and in his mind and rode the flow of sensation between them, love and lust and blazing energy, it was all one, all swirling without stop in the endless electric currents their bodies had become, trembling on the edge between agony and ecstasy until flesh could take no more and the balance tipped.

 

It coiled around Luke's spine and built, starting low and taking over every nerve, every part, everything that was himself and Han, no difference, no distance, until it burst and roared outward, white starfire behind his eyes, racing nova along every fraction of skin and tearing him apart into shreds of light. Falling back into Han, slide and weight and pressure and the taste of himself on Han's tongue as Han stole what little breath Luke had and froze, spasmed and shuddered hard, his climax a second firestorm in Luke's mind and against his skin, heat and light and wild burst of sound.

 

They drifted, wrecked and clinging together, until the starfire gradually cooled into a candescent glow, a soft contentment that added another layer to the reweaving between them. Han nuzzled, slow and sleepy and sated, into Luke's shoulder. _You're mine._ Simple and sure, like a puzzle piece snapped back into place.

 

Luke smiled. _I always have been._

 

* * *

 

 

What Luke cared to take with him from Ahch-To barely made a visible pile in the corner of the _Falcon's_ rear hold, the last area on Han's pre-flight check walk. Little enough to show for five years on this rock, Han thought as he palmed the bulkhead door closed, not sure if he was more amused or appalled.

 

But then Luke always had traveled light, from that very first day when he'd escaped Tatooine with really nothing more than the clothes on his back. Something he had in common with his sister – Leia traveled with very little frou-frou even when she could bring more. Oh, Han remembered trips where –

 

Leia.

 

Han stopped dead, there in the corridor, as her image rose up out of his mind's eye. Gray-shot hair still long and worn like the crown she should have had, her neat form dressed in military-style drab that somehow looked as wonderful on her as everything else did, those beautiful, liquid brown eyes and the way she'd felt in his arms, the way she – stop.

 

 _ **Stop**_ , _godsdamnit_.

 

Han put one hand on the bulkhead and breathed in until his chest twinged, and gave himself a shake. _Don't go there, not now._ Go there now, and he'd run the risk of getting sucked into that welter of memories and the undertow of regrets, of trapping himself in a version of the ocean he'd dragged Luke out of not three days earlier.

 

_Lock it down, Solo, and put it in gear before one of them comes looking for you. You've gotta long way to –_

 

“Han?”

 

Too late. He blinked and found Rey standing right in front of him. “What?” he said shortly.

 

“Luke says we're ready to go,” she said, watching him carefully. “Are you –?”

 

“Luke says? _Luke_ says? Nobody died and made him captain,” Han snapped, welcoming the heat-shot of temper that whipped through him even as part of him winced at what he'd just said. “Chewie!”

 

His partner's annoyed bark echoed back in answer as Han stalked past a wide-eyed Rey. No surprise there – a short-on-sleep Chewie was an irritable Chewie and the big lug had slept particularly badly, he'd told Han, on the trip out to this waterlogged excuse for a planet. Which Han supposed was a compliment, really.

 

“Yeah, we're locked down; hit it,” Han growled as he reached the cockpit. “ _If_ I can have the stick?”

 

“Of course,” Luke said evenly, turning toward him, left hand brushing across the flight console. “I was just saying 'hello.'” He rose, a motley concert in wrapped, drab shades of beige and gray, although he'd left off the cloak. He slipped by Han and into his accustomed spot, the navigation chair behind the pilot's chair, as Han thumped down. A little something settled down, as well, inside Han's chest. _Where he damn-well should be._

 

“Han?” Luke murmured, close by his ear but not touching, just the underswell of presence, the unshakable acceptance bedrock-solid. Not pushing, not probing, just there. There if Han wanted ...

 

“Later, alright?” Han said, watching the progress of the warm-up sequence without really seeing it, “just …” Ah, damn it all. “Leia.”

 

“Ah.” Softly, and more of Han's temper drained away with Luke's exhale and the brief grip of his fingers around Han's upper arm. Nobody knew better than Luke just how – complicated – Han's relationship with his sister was.

 

“Alright, we're good.” Han looked sideways at Chewie and saw Rey as well, silent and tense in the engineering seat behind the Wook. When had she – ? Hells, he _was_ losing it. “How 'bout a way outta here?”

 

“That's my cue,” Luke said. A few moments of stillness, then the _Falcon_ began to sink as the platform under her lowered.

 

“How –? Oh,” Rey said. “But – then how did you get in, the first –? Oh,” she said again, in a tone of discovery.

 

Han had to smile. “Jedi mind-tricks,” he grumbled, and felt the quick, sunny brush of Luke's amusement.

 

“That's not quite what it was,” Luke said, “but you can tell me when you have it figured out, Rey. Think of it as a puzzle. Your first lesson on how the Force works, if you like.”

 

“But I know how the Force works,” Rey protested, and Han _felt_ Luke go very still behind him. “I used it on Starkiller when I made Kylo Ren get out of my head! I made that 'trooper let me go and then I made the 'saber come back and I fought Ren with it! And I would've _had_ him, too, if – ”

 

“Were you angry?”

 

“ _Of course_ I was angry! _He'd_ _ **murdered**_ _Han!_ And he hurt – !”

 

“Never use the Force in anger, Rey.”

 

“But it –”

 

“ _Rey_.” Soft; but something immense tolled under Luke's voice. It raised the hair on the back of Han's neck, and it stopped Rey cold.

 

For a few moments there was no sound in the cockpit save for the muted gurgle of seawater rising around the _Falcon_ and the faint hum of her drives idling in standby.

 

“You asked me to teach you,” Luke said, still soft, “and I agreed. But for this to work, you must understand that there are reasons – very solid, deadly serious reasons – for the things I tell you and the things I'll ask of you.” The weight of experience, bitter and sweet, freighted Luke's tone like gravity around a black hole. “I'm not saying that you shouldn't question – I _want_ your questions, all of them. _Never_ be afraid to ask. But in return, you must trust me. Not blind belief, never that; but trust. Think about your answer, Rey; don't rush into it.”

 

Trying to give her more of a choice than he himself had been given. Han closed his eyes, remembering the brash but shy, sunny kid from Tatooine and the dark, contained Jedi knight who'd rescued him from Jabba. No, by the time Luke had truly understood what he'd been thrown into, it had been far, far too late. And he'd had to live with the consequences ever since.

 

They had all had to live with them.

 

The link had narrowed down, just that fine sense of Luke's presence and little else. When Han looked over his shoulder, Luke was there but very still, back straight and eyes distant, and the lives – and deaths – of every single student he'd had were carved in the lines of his face.

 

 _I love you,_ Han thought helplessly.

 

Luke blinked and met his eyes, and the space connecting them flooded instantly with everything that there were no words for, that had wrestled death itself for Han and would do so again, without thought or hesitation, in the blink of an eye.

 

In the corner of his vision Han saw Rey staring at the two of them, rattled emotions fighting across her face.

 

<The chamber is full.> Chewbacca's growl cracked the moment loose. The sea-distorted sound of the outer airlock door opening followed.

 

“Retract the gear after I get her out of the water,” Han said with an effort, snapping himself back to the business of getting the _Falcon_ skybound.

 

The freighter hadn't been built for this and flying underwater took a different touch, but his baby had done it before and she managed just fine this time too, rising and hovering to shake off the foreign element.

 

Then Han sent her up through layers of atmosphere and for some minutes deliberately lost himself in the simple joy of flying his ship, shedding the last of earlier temper and tension, he and Chewie working like the well-oiled team they were.

 

When Chewbacca had the coordinates set for what he assured Han was the new Resistance base, there was a pause, like a collective breath in the cockpit, before Han touched the controls and the _Falcon_ surged, the stars blurring together as the freighter leaped smoothly into the first of their hyperspace jumps.

 

An actual soft sigh behind him, and Han swiveled half-around, feeling that sort of peace he sometimes did in the midst of those mesmeric lights. From two angles now. “Welcome back to the great big galaxy, kid.”

 

Luke's slow smile was nearly a light source in itself. “There was a time when I wondered ...” _if I'd see those lights again._ He rose and gave Han's shoulder a squeeze, which became a trailing caress as he left the cockpit.

 

_Luke?_

 

_She needs to talk, Han, but it won't happen with me there._

 

_Now, wait a –_

 

_She's upset, and confused, and you're the one she'll turn to._

 

A glance at Rey, as she went from looking after Luke's departing form back to looking out at the hyperlights, and Han could see it, in her set jaw and too-wide eyes.  _Well, hells._

 

Warmth spiced with wry amusement curled through him and lingered, like the best sort of hug.

 

Damned if he wasn't getting seriously addicted to this all-in kind of connection. Han settled back in his seat and soaked it in for long, lovely minutes, wrapping it around his heart, before he spoke out loud. “Chewie.”

 

His partner's massive head turned.

 

“Go take a nap, pal, why don't you?” Han tilted his own head toward the door. “This leg's easy, go relax. Rey and I'll take it for a while; I'll bet she wouldn't mind the practice. Go on already,” he repeated when Chewie didn't move, “hit the hammock.”

 

Chewbacca's expression said quite clearly that he'd told Han himself that Rey had flown much of the way out and therefore Han had something up his sleeve, but that he'd let Han get away with it. This time. <Perhaps I shall go and speak with Luke. I have missed him, and we have much to discuss now.> This last barked with sly humor.

 

Han rolled his eyes, grimacing; he'd almost forgotten about the life-debt. “Yeah, great. Get out of here, will ya?”

 

Without further ado Chewbacca vacated the co-pilot's chair. Rey, after a beat, moved herself into it and sat staring straight ahead at the twisting, blurring stars, a slender steel figure all in textures of gray.

 

Han settled his shoulders and waited for the opening gambit, only to realize after a few minutes that it was going to have to be his. Krif. He never had liked being in the “confessor” role very much. “So,” he said softly. “What's up?”

 

Rey's head came around and she just looked him, before she straightened up. “You're not still mad at me, then?”

 

“ _Mad_ at you?” he echoed, taken aback. “I'm not – ” Memory ticked, and Han sighed and closed his eyes a moment. “Rey, no. That wasn't at _you_. Or at Luke, either, for that matter. That was –“ He breathed in, pushed it back out. “Well, that was something else. Look, I've – got a temper, but it doesn't last.” He considered. “Usually.”

 

“Okay.” Rey nodded and looked away, back down at the flight console, but her posture didn't ease much.

 

Han watched her. “Somethin' more?” he prompted gently, after another minute or two.

 

She looked at him again, and this time something broke open. “I don't know what to do,” she said, and Han heard the faintest tremor in her voice. “I _always_ know what to do. It's only ever been me – I _have_ to know. I mean, with BB-8 I just knew, that I had to keep him. And then Finn, and then this ship – and then I met _you_ , and you're – I knew I should stay, I could trust you – ” She grabbed for air, and Han's stomach tightened.

 

“But then _**this**_ – ” Rey's left hand clenched around the lightsaber hilt stuck in her belt, the one she'd given to Luke and Luke had given back to her. Luke's first 'saber, lost over Bespin. Kriffin' _Anakin_ _Skywalker's_ 'saber, and how in any of nine hells Maz Kanata had ended up with the thing was a question Han fully intended to get an answer to.

 

“ – _**this**_ happened and it was all in my head, all at once, screaming and fighting and pain and then _me_! I'm seeing me somehow, when they left me and – !” Her eyes squeezed shut.

 

“Rey,” Han said on a startled breath, because this was new. “What’re you saying, that you – saw things?”

 

She nodded. “When I picked this up.” Her eyes blinked open. “Something, like somebody screaming, drew me down into the lower part of the castle. Where I found a wooden trunk, with this inside. When I picked it up, I – saw things, and heard them. All at once. A long corridor and the sound of a lightsaber igniting, and a man screaming ‘No!’. Somebody talking about energies.

 

“I saw – ” She looked straight at Han, eyes widening. “ _Luke_. That was Luke, with his hand – and R2D2 – and something was burning – and then Kylo Ren and others like him and they were killing people, _everybody_ – ” Rey shut her eyes again, tightly, and her face twisted. “And then I saw me,” she whispered, “me, when they left me. We'll be back, he said, we'll be back – and they never did.”

 

Han stayed still, until Rey shook herself and seemed to come back. “Then I saw Kylo Ren again,” she said, her voice turning hard as durasteel, “walking toward me in the snow, exactly like he did on Starkiller. And I came to on the floor, with some other voice telling me that these were first steps.”

 

Sweet suns. No wonder she'd run.

 

“I got out of there and there's Maz, wanting to know what happened. And she tells me who the 'saber'd belonged to and how the Force was 'calling' me now, and stuff about the Light and how I should take the 'saber and – ” She stopped again and swallowed, staring forward out of the cockpit. “I didn't want it, didn't want any part of it. All I want is for my family to come back. But they're not, I know that now.” She swallowed again and her head dropped forward, to hang between her shoulders. “They're not ever coming back.”

 

It never got any easier to watch somebody's illusions shatter. “'m sorry, Rey.”

 

“How do you know?” There was a very slight shake to her voice. “If you can trust somebody, if they're going to do what they say? How do you _know_?”

 

Han's mouth twisted, but hells if he was gonna lie to her. “You don't. Nobody does, not really. You go with your gut, and you do the best you can.”

 

“What if – what if they don't come back?”

 

The memory of a long, painful night on a forest moon stuck in Han’s throat. But Luke had come back.

 

Rey hadn’t been that lucky, and Han’s heart ached for her. “Sometimes they mess up, yeah – but not because they wanted to. Sometimes – what's going on is just bigger than they can handle. Best you can do is pick the good ones – the ones your heart tells you – and you trust 'em.”

 

“But what he said, about being angry, I don't – ” Rey stopped and shut her eyes, and took a deep breath, and pulled herself up and together. “Is he right?” Calm, but her eyes begged for Han to answer. “Should I do this, train, learn the Force, with him?”

 

“Rey.” Gods, but it hurt to look at her, like something spiky jabbing into his gut. Han leaned toward her but he didn't touch; like a wild thing, she only welcomed that on her own terms.

 

“Sweetheart, I can't tell you that,” he said, and watched her bite her lip. “All I can tell you is that Luke is about the finest being I've ever known. I've trusted him – with my life, and more – for over thirty years, and he's never let me down. Sometimes – ” He had to stop and take a breath. “Gods know, sometimes things didn't turn out the way either of us wanted them to, but he has _never_ let me down. _Never_.

 

“This whole Force thing, though? Now that you're 'awake', as Luke puts it – You're strong with this stuff, Rey, or you're gonna be, and people _know_ who you are now. So you gotta learn something about it whether you want to or not, 'cause the First Order ain't gonna let you out of the game just because you decide you don't wanna play.”

 

“What you're saying is, then,” Rey swallowed, “that I **don't** have a choice. Not really.”

 

Han watched her, wishing like hell that he could tell her different.

 

“ _He_ said he wanted to teach me,” Rey said in a half-whisper, outraged and a little unsteady. She reached out and took one of his hands in hers, and stared at them together. “Kylo Ren. Like I'd get anywhere _near_ him after what he did to you, and Finn, and what he said about you.”

 

What had been said, Han could far too easily imagine.

 

Her gaze darted up to meet his. “I was _so_ _angry_ , Han. It was like this cold fire in me when I fought him, and fighting him was _so_ _easy_ , like I just knew how to do it. If the ground hadn't collapsed between us, I'd've had him.”

 

Han swallowed now, against a throat gone dry. “From what Luke's told me, that 'easy' thing? That's why fighting angry is so dangerous. Anger and fear and hate, they'll pull you down the Dark Side before you know it.”

 

“Fear.” Rey's gaze went distant for a few seconds. “He’s afraid – Kylo Ren, I mean; I felt it. But – what does that – ?”

 

Han shook his head. “Luke's the expert, not me. But – I've seen the results.”

 

Her eyes widened. “What –?”

 

The corners of Han's mouth pulled up in what wasn't a smile. “Who do you think?”

 

“Kylo Ren?” Rey's brows knotted. “Then, you knew him before –?”

 

Oh, gods _ **.**_ This was gonna hurt. “You could say that. He's my son.”

 

A frozen moment – then Rey jerked back and away, her eyes huge and one hand slapped across her mouth as she stared at him –

 

 _Han?_ Luke, sharp with alarm –

 

 _No, stay there_ –

 

And then she was in his arms for the second time in as many days, her own flung around his neck. She inhaled and it sounded wet. “I'm sorry,” she said, her voice a tremulous half-whisper. “I'm so, so sorry.”

 

Han let go of the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He folded his arms around Rey's back and felt the catch of her hair against his jaw, and closed his eyes as the spike-wire tension that'd been knotting in his stomach released all at once. It left a touch of nausea in its wake, but also a small, curious easing of a raw spot that nobody else had been able to touch.

 

“Thank you,” he murmured. And if his voice wasn't completely steady either, nobody'd know but the two of them.

 

So fierce, she was; so hard and yet so – open. Wary, but forthright, and so – _believing_ , in a way that reminded him forcefully of Luke. Whoever the poor, stupid bastards had been who'd left her on Jakku, they didn't deserve her.

 

Rey's breathing hitched and Han moved a hand between her shoulder blades and rubbed gently, and had to wonder who if anybody had ever done that for her before. He'd gotten better at this sort of comforting thing, at least, over the years, or so he'd been told.

 

He watched the hyperlights and just held her, until finally Rey took a deeper breath and pulled away. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but clear.

 

“Okay?” Han asked.

 

She nodded and gave him a small smile. “I’m gonna go – think, for a while.”

 

She took herself out of the cockpit and Han watched her go. Then he swiveled his chair back around front, and looked out again at the familiar glow.

 

And it occurred to him, after some minutes of hearing only the _Falcon’s_ much-missed thrum, that this was the first time he’d been alone since before he and Chewie had used the _Eravana_ to scoop up a battered-looking old YT-1300 freighter out of space near Jakku.

 

Physically alone, anyway. It was kinda nice. Peaceful.

 

He leaned his head back and watched the lights for a while.

 

Maybe even restful, after the godawful wringer of the last – sweet suns, it hadn’t even been three standard weeks, had it? Since he'd got the _Falcon_ back and got the grandprize mother-load of trouble along with her.

 

 _Transporting fugitives and runaway droids._ Eyes closed, Han huffed and then laughed at himself. _You’d think I’d learn. Wasn’t that how I got suckered into the middle of all this the_ _ **last**_ _time around?_

 

_More or less,_ came Luke’s answer, sounding wry. A pause.  _Mind if I come watch the lights for a bit?_

 

Han’s brow creased.  _What kinda dumb question’s that? Get in here._

 

Shortly after, quiet footsteps and then a shift in the air as Luke slipped into Chewie's seat, bringing familiar and unfamiliar scents with him. Han sniffed. No, all familiar, just not on Luke.

 

“What?”

 

Han rolled his head and opened his eyes to meet Luke's quizzical gaze. “You smell like the ocean.”

 

Luke's mouth quirked. “No big surprise there, I’d think.”

 

“On you it is.” Han smiled. “Somehow I still expect sand and sun, even now.”

 

“Well, if you will go picking up people from desert planets … But Jakku – ” Luke shook his head. “She was ‘left’ there?”

 

“As a little kid, apparently, and she’s been doing salvage scavenging her whole life. Seems a regular planetary economy got created with that battle.”

 

“Something useful from all that death, then. But that’s no life for a child.”

 

“That’s no life for anybody who didn’t choose it. I’d like to get my hands on the ‘family’ she says left her there.” Han’s eyes narrowed. “You _are_ gonna train her, right?”

 

Luke sighed. “To shield herself, anyway. After that? We'll see.”

 

Han opened his mouth to argue but Luke was already turning to pin him with intense blue eyes. “Her potential is enormous, Han. And now she’s a great big shiny walking target, but – she’s already felt the quick, easy strength anger can bring. Anger at _your_ _death_. How do I convince her that was wrong? That using the Force that way is a path to the Dark? That it’ll twist her and drag her down? Why should she believe that the strength of the Light is so much more, when it can be so much harder to reach?”

 

Han stared back at him. “I might have taken care of that first thing. For the second one ...” He started to smile. “Maybe you already have.”

 

The most basic, fundamental question – and damned if Han didn’t think he actually had an answer, for once. He turned to face Luke and leaned into the space between them, spread his hands at chest-level. “The Dark Side do this?” he asked, tapping a finger against his own breastbone. “Huh-uh. _This_ is the Light Side, right here: love did this. Dark Side’s got _nothing_ on this.”

 

It took a minute, but Luke started to smile, his gaze dropping off then darting back up so that he was looking at Han almost through his lashes, a long-time, oddly shy gesture of his that had never lost its charm. He took Han's hand and leaned in close. The prosthetic fingers felt that little bit cooler without the synthskin to cover them, but his mouth was as warm as ever, beard a soft rasp on Han's skin, and the kiss was very thorough.

 

Han hummed deep in his throat when he was finally released. “Get all sorts of ideas going that way, kid.”

 

Luke's eyes held a wicked spark. “Re-inaugurate the cockpit?”

 

“Maybe you're still that limber, but I like a softer bed these days,” Han murmured, raising his eyebrows. "Besides, Chewie barely forgave us the first time around.”

 

Luke laughed, but sobered far sooner than Han would've liked. A sense of anticipation and nerves rose and prickled through the link.

 

Han sighed. “Whatever it is, just say it.”

 

The edge of a gentle smile. “Tell me about Leia.”

 

Han blew out a hard breath. He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. Luke didn't push, and he didn't let go of Han's hand.

 

“I couldn't stay,” Han muttered finally. “And ... ”

 

“ … and?”

 

“And she didn't ask me to.”

 

Luke squeezed his fingers.

 

“After – everything, it hurt her more and more to look at me and see – him. And you weren't there. And you weren't _here_ either – ” he tapped his chest with his free hand, “and the, the _hole_ just got to be more than I could take. So I left. Went back to trading, smuggling, pass along a little intel here and there, mostly through Maz Kanata, and trying to keep from thinking too much.”

 

“And how'd that work out?”

 

Han snorted. “Like I said last night: badly.”

 

“And Leia?”

 

“Back to what she does best, being in charge. Running a Rebellion. 'N thank Force and the High Gods she did, 'cause otherwise she might've been on Hosnian Prime when the First Order took the system out.”

 

Luke shuddered, inside and out, and Han opened his eyes and gripped Luke's hand this time. “You felt it.”

 

“Oh yes.”

 

“Bad?”

 

Luke took a deep breath and Han caught an echo, like the distant boom of a kind of vast shockwave, through his own head. “Worse than I can tell you. Every awake Force sensitive in the galaxy probably felt it. It was – ” Luke shivered again, and shook his head. “After that, I – started searching, looking, where I'd – been drifting, before. So that, when you shouted – ”

 

The rest didn't need saying. Han gripped harder until Luke met his eyes. _You can't take on blame for that._

 

_No, I know._

 

But.

 

But knowing and knowing weren't the same thing to his overly-conscientious Jedi. _Luke –_

 

“Luke?”

 

The voice overlaying his was higher and lighter. Han turned his head and saw Rey standing in the cockpit doorway.

 

“Yes?” Luke said.

 

“I want to talk to you,” Rey said. She slipped into the seat behind Luke. Her gaze flicked downward momentarily and it was then Han realized that he was still holding Luke's hand, and that Luke didn't seem inclined to let go.

 

“I want you to teach me,” Rey said, quiet and steady. “I've thought about what happened, what I did, and about what you said. I need you to teach me so that I can see the traps before I fall into them, so that I don't ever become like that. If I've got this – power, like Han says, then I want to use it to stay in the Light, with you. With both of you.”

 

A sense of pause, and reservation, and finally, acceptance. _So be it._

 

Luke nodded. “Then I believe we should make a start.”

 

*

 

Humming sounds greeted Han when he came into the _Falcon's_ lounge and he stopped and leaned in the entryway, memory striking him hard. The blue blade of a lightsaber, _that_ lightsaber, and the buzz of the little remote Han hadn't bothered with since the last time Luke himself had practiced with it, probably fifteen standard years ago.

 

Luke sat in the same chair Kenobi had used that very first time, clearing the maximum amount of space for Rey, who was watching the hovering machine like a hawk and trying to deflect its random zips of energy. And succeeding –

 

Sometimes. The yip Rey let out took him right back, and Han turned his head to hide his smile.

 

Luke spared him a look. _Don't laugh_ _this time, all right?_

 

 _Wouldn't d_ _are_ _,_ Han assured him, seating himself at the engineering station. _She's scarier than you were back then, anyway._

 

 _Thanks so much,_ Luke said, but his attention was focused on the young woman who was swinging the blade up again, the look on her face going from concentration to –

 

Anger. The remote abruptly spun and dove, spitting light, and Rey caught every one, her face a mask –

 

“Stop. Rey, stop. _Rey._ ” Luke's voice cracked across the small space and Rey pulled up, breathing hard. “Tell me what you're feeling.”

 

She stared at him, and then her eyes and her face fell. “Angry. Again.” Rey switched off the 'saber and walked over to the couch and sat down, hard.

 

“Let's try this another way.” Luke said. “May I touch your mind?”

 

Rey's eyes widened and she hesitated, before a small smile curved her mouth. “Yes. Thank you for asking.”

 

Which told Han that the last person who'd done that to her, hadn't asked. Another drop in his son's overflowing bucket.

 

Luke didn't move. “Close your eyes,” he said. “Don't think about that fight. Don't think of fighting at all. Think of something that you and I both know, think – ” _about sand._

 

Those last words were in his mind, Han realized, and his breath caught fractionally as an edge of something touched him. A sense of heat and grit but more than that, a sense of – what? Ever-changing yet never changing, an eternal whisper of motion, an immensity, the calm of –

 

– _feel it, let that feeling flow –_

 

“Oh.” Rey's voice.

 

– _let it move –_

 

An inhale.

 

– _from there. Yes._

 

Love. A belonging, and an uttermost sense of peace, touching the edge of a vastness there were no real words for – Han blinked, saw Luke smiling at him although his lover's eyes were on Rey and he didn't move –

 

A sigh.

 

A gentle drawing back.

 

Rey blinking, her face loose and as open as Han had yet seen. She turned enormous eyes on Luke, wonder and a kind of joy in them. “So – much. So – like me, you're, you feel like – ” She swallowed. “Are you my father?”

 

_Oh, child._

 

Sorrow cut into the space between himself and Luke like the sharpest knife, so clean and quick it took a moment to feel the pain before it welled up and overflowed.

 

Luke shook his head slowly.

 

Rey's face crumpled, and Han ached for her again.

 

“But then … who? _Wh_ _o_?” Rey asked, her voice very rough. “I remember so clearly them saying that they'd be back for me, but no-one ever came ...”

 

Luke went over and nudged a packing crate, sat down in front of her and took both her hands in his. She didn't shy from the touch of his unskinned prosthetic, but then, she hadn't yet that Han had seen. “Rey, I don't know. I am sorry,” Luke said softly, kind but unsparing. “I know exactly what it's like to grow up not knowing your parents.

 

“But I _would_ know, through the Force, if you were mine, or Han's. If I could claim you by blood, I would, in a heartbeat – either of us would,” he looked over at Han, who nodded, throat tight. “But no child of mine that I'd known about would have grown up alone. Add to that, I wasn't sleeping with anyone who _could_ have gotten pregnant twenty years ago.”

 

 _How diplomatic_ , Han thought wryly, and saw the corner of Luke's mouth quirk.

 

“Nor would Han and Leia have left any known child of theirs, and since giving birth isn't the sort of thing, I'm told, that a woman forgets ...”

 

But Rey didn't respond to the attempt at levity. “And you can't – I don't know, use the Force somehow for this, too? Trace, something – ?”

 

Luke smiled gently. “It doesn't work that way, sadly. If I had ever met them, perhaps – the beings who left you – I could seek out some sense of them. As it is, we'll have to do it the hard way.” He threw another glance at Han.

 

Han nodded again; he'd start putting out feelers about this as soon as they landed, not the least because where had this girl – precocious as all hells, even he could see that – come from?

 

Han picked himself up and moved to sit by Rey, bumping his shoulder against hers. Her air of “need-you-not”, no doubt bred by the life of bare knife-edge survival she'd been forced into, didn't seem to apply to him anymore, not since his revelation in the cockpit. His coming back from the dead probably had something to do with that, too. Han felt her lean into him a little bit.

 

Her gaze, though, stayed trained on Luke. “So the – stories are right? You didn't know your family either?”

 

Han saw the flicker in Luke's eyes. “I was raised by my aunt and uncle, my father's step-brother and his wife. They – misled me about my parents – about my father – thinking to protect me. They were murdered by Imperial troops when I was about your age.” His gaze slid off to the side, his habit of old when dealing with something uncomfortable, and Han caught the echo, outside and in, of that very old pain. “If I'd been home at the time, I probably would have died with them.”

 

Rey squeezed Luke's hands. “I'm sorry,” she said, simple but earnest, and it raised the ghost of Luke's smile. And it struck Han all over again, that knack Luke had always had for connecting with damn near anybody, starting with Han himself. “They must have been really good people.”

 

The faint smile remained as Luke tilted his head. “I've always thought so, but why do you say that?”

 

“Well – ” Rey looked like she was hunting for words, before giving up and just opening her mouth. “I mean – They raised _you_.”

 

Luke's eyes widened, and a moment later the impact of her words washed through the link. Han caught his breath and started to smile. _What'd I tell ya, kid? Good clear through. Anybody can see it._

 

A jumbled tangle of emotion, still tender at the edges, pressed back at him.

 

Luke leaned forward and kissed Rey on the forehead, to her very obvious surprise. “Thank you, Rey.” Then he rose to his feet. _Han –_

 

_Yeah, go on._

 

Rey shifted as Luke all but ran from the lounge but Han kept a grip on her, and tugged her back down when she would have followed. “Give him a few minutes.”

 

“But – ” She turned a confused face to him. “What did I – ?”

 

Han shook his head. “Sore spot, that's all. 's okay. You gonna ask me, too?” he said, his voice brusque, knowing he needed a diversion.

 

Rey blinked, caught. “Ask you what?”

 

“About _my_ family.”

 

She opened her mouth and closed it again, obviously considering. “Who were they?” she asked.

 

“No clue,” Han said easily. He'd reconciled with that particular sting half a lifetime ago. “My first memories are an orphanage on Corellia, and nobody there knew any more than that I'd been picked up outta some street that the Imperials'd bombed holy kriffin' hell out of. Learned how to lie and fight, and steal, and gamble. Learned how to fly and got myself off-planet. Met a Wookie.” Han smiled.

 

“With the _Falcon_?”

 

“Nah, she came along later.” Han's smile widened, like it always did on the memory of that perfect sabacc hand and what it had won him.

 

“Did you go back, ever?” Rey asked after some moments' silence.

 

Han shrugged. “I did, but there was nothing to find. The building – hells, the whole city block it'd been on was under 'bout a million tons of duracrete building, courtesy of the Empire. If there ever were any records ...”

 

If pushed hard, he'd confess that he'd never completely understood the need to know where you “came from.” Didn't matter in the end who your parents were, who'd contributed your biological material, not really: every sentient being succeeded or fucked up on their own merits, not because of who their daddy was. Who raised you – or didn't raise you, even if they were around – mattered a lot more than who had stuck what into whom and gotten your conception going.

 

Even when genetics stacked the deck one way or the other, Han had seen folks from horrible circumstances make something good of themselves. And more than a couple of “good family” types screw it up royally. At the final call, it was your own damn choice.

 

He reminded himself of that when he thought of his son.

 

Especially when he thought about his son.

 

“ – ahead.”

 

Rey's voice broke into Han's thoughts. “What?” he asked, focusing back on her.

 

“It's something Maz said to me, down in that room, after I'd picked up the lightsaber.” She looked at him, eyes wide and thoughtful. “She said 'The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.'”

 

“Sometimes Maz – says some worthwhile stuff. The family you make for yourself, that's the important one. Which doesn't meant we're not gonna try real hard to find your blood kin.”

 

“Finn. He's my family, then.” Hazel eyes, more golden than his own, questioned him, earnest and unsure. “And, uhm – you, too, if – you want to be?”

 

It warmed him clear through, and touched something that had been cold since they'd lost Ben. “I'd like that, Rey.”

 

Rey's abrupt smile broke like sunshine through clouds. “Good. Uhm, do you think Luke would like – ?”

 

That sent another shot of warmth through Han's chest. “To be part of your family, you mean? Yeah, I think he would.”

 

“I think he would, too,” Luke said from the corridor entry. “I think he would like that very much.”

 

Orphans all, one way or another, Han thought, as he watched Luke walk forward and hold out his hand to Rey. Orphans they'd been, he and Luke and Leia, and they'd forged a family then, created a space and time and a belonging for themselves out of war and shattered lives. And it had worked, for years it had worked, until fate or the Dark Side or some other bastard _something_ had decided that they'd had it long enough and the whole godsbedamned mess needed to happen one more kriffin' time, like a moebius loop twisting back on itself.

 

And so here they were again, this time with orphans of their own.

 

Rey was a little taller but when they embraced, in that moment Luke surrounded her, folding her into his arms almost like she was a child, and Rey's head went down on his shoulder with a whisper of a sigh.

 

 _Han?_ Luke's eyes were bright, the link awash with a kind of choked tenderness.

 

Han rose and went to them, and put one hand on Rey's back and his other arm around Luke's shoulders. “To families,” he said softly. “We've got a good one, here.”

 

* * *

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Moebius  
> 7/9/16  
> Han/Luke, mentions of past Han/Leia
> 
> Direct sequel to TESSERACT; this won't make a great lot of sense if you've not read that story first. This author acknowledges a huge debt to some wonderful H/L writers before me, including particularly walkerminion and irene heron, who had a big and direct influence on some of Chewie's dialogue, especially in the nickname he holds for Han. My forever thanks once again to HollyC. for beta thwappage, tons of encouragement and a house in the mountains, to culturevulture73 because this is all still pretty much your fault, and to Cara Loup for more encouragement and some of the best emails ever. This is the longest thing I've yet published! *falls over*


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